Many people — including those who are perhaps a little too anxious to shoot down the controversial NSA phone/credit card dragnet and PRISM information technology spying program as if they were another manufactured Benghazi — are claiming that one or both of these programs were responsible for stopping a terrorist attack inside the United States in 2009.
While the government did stop such an attack by Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty to planning an attack in early 2010, anonymous claims by the Obama administration that these programs were responsible appear intentionally misleading.
The NPR article linked above from 2009 made no mention of any previously unknown intelligence programs that lead the government to suspect Zazi was planning an attack or the existence of his email accounts. It attributes successful surveillance of Zazi to an FBI investigation, not one by the NSA, that used ordinary subpoenas and wiretaps under existing authority from the USA Patriot Act and FISA court orders.
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